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Property next to future Buc-ee’s for sale in Mississippi

CityBusiness staff reports//July 7, 2022//

Property next to future Buc-ee’s for sale in Mississippi

CityBusiness staff reports//July 7, 2022//

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Buc-ee’s, the super-sized travel center headed to the Mississippi Gulf Coast, could get several neighbors that would further transform an undeveloped corner off Interstate 10.

Adjacent to Buc-ee’s is 140 acres now up for sale and available to retail, hotel, industrial, medical and office users. Located at the northwest corner of Menge Avenue and Interstate 10 in Pass Christian, the Menge Commercial Park is owned by an unnamed out-of-state investor group represented by Beau Box Commercial Real Estate. They are asking between $2 and $15 per square foot, depending on size and location, according to the real estate company. The property is zoned for industrial and commercial use and will not be used for residential, a Beau Box spokesperson said.

The plan is to widen the existing overpass to five lanes over I-10 to help the site attract regional and national tenants, said Beau Box, president and CEO of his real estate firm.

“We have had great interest from all types of potential users so far,” he said in a news release. The company declined the name the firms that have reached out.

An estimated $15 million dollars will be spent to ease traffic flow off the Menge Avenue exit into the commercial park and improve the roadway, the release said. Mississippi has committed millions to the development.

Along with that, a new concrete boulevard between Lobouy Road and Firetower Road/Menge Avenue will be built next to Buc-ee’s that will run through the middle of the commercial park area.

A commercial park of this size has been needed in Harrison County for a long time, according to Dax Alexander, project engineer for Brown, Mitchell & Alexander, Inc., the civil engineering lead on the development.

“The location is perfect and utilities are available for a regional business center, and the Menge Commercial Park will finally fill the void,” Alexander said in the news release.

Buc-ee’s, a popular Texas-based chain of convenience stores with multiple gas stations, snacks and drinks, T-shirts and knickknacks and a beaver mascot, touts its clean restrooms as it lures drivers to pull over, rest, gas up and shop.

In 2019, the chain opened a location in Robertsdale, Alabama, off I-10 on a route that many drivers use to get to Gulf Shores and Orange Beach. Buc-ee’s has dozens of locations across the rest of the South.

This would be its first in Mississippi, and the closest to New Orleans. It is expected to be one of the chain’s largest stores; Buc-ee’s purchased 43 acres at the site. A timeline for construction has not been announced.

There are no Buc-ee’s in Louisiana. Media reports in recent years said the chain had been considering a location in Baton Rouge, but those plans fell through.

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